By Blaire Molitor

It’s no surprise that Texans love their Bible as much as their country music, which is why Lisa Sandberg’s piece in the San Antonio Express-News on the sectarian nature of Bible courses taught in Texas public high schools is anything but unexpected. The article covers the report “Reading, Writing and Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools,” a study which revealed that the vast majority of Bible courses taught in Texas do not teach about the Bible, but instead present it as divinely inspired, literal history.

What no one seems to mention, however, is if there are any other religion courses being offered. The notion that a largely Christian state offers Bible courses which “tend to be explicitly devotional in nature and reflect an almost exclusively Christian perspective,” should not be shocking. What is distressing, is that neither Sandberg, nor anyone else mentioned in the piece, discusses the idea that other religious electives, beyond the Bible, should be (or are) offered in the curriculum.

Beyond the somewhat expected, yet nonetheless upsetting, fact that the courses are thoroughly sectarian is the disappointing notion that these classes might be the only religious education that the students are being exposed to. Perhaps even worse than the schools teaching the Bible as absolute truth, is the idea that the schools are teaching only the Bible. The real benefit of the study would be the introduction of multi-religious electives into the curriculum, yet it seems that some Texas school districts are far too concerned with the Bible to realize the educational as well as personal advantages of a comprehensive religious perspective.

Blaire Molitor is a student at the University of Southern California.